Brilliance (39 page)

“Alpha, roger. Hold please.”

Cooper leaned back in the sales guy’s chair, the springs creaking. Out the front glass, he watched traffic pass, watched the clouds shift and change, rays of sunlight stabbing down from between them.

There was a click, and then Equitable Services Director Drew Peters said, “Nick?” The voice was familiar even now, quiet with the assurance of command. Cooper could picture him in his office, slim headset over neatly trimmed hair, the framed photos of targets on the wall, John Smith among them.
Is my photograph on that wall as well?

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Are you all right?”

“Fine. I’m on-mission.”

“What was that scene last week?”

“What?”

“Don’t toy with me, son. On the El platform in Chicago. Do you know that civilians were shot?”

“Not by me,” Cooper said, surprised at the anger sloshing in his gut. “Maybe you better talk to your goddamn snipers.” He bit down on the instinctual
sir.

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t shoot anybody. And you’re welcome, by the way. For, you know, giving up my entire life and becoming a fugitive. You want to talk scenes? Okay. How about Chinatown?”

“You’re referring to the detention of Lee Chen and his family?”

“Shoplifters are detained. This was a tactical response team starting a riot and kidnapping a family. That little girl was eight.” Heard himself say
was
instead of
is
, hated himself for it. “What are you guys even fighting for?”

There was a pause. In a clipped, controlled voice, Peters said, “Are you finished?”

“For now.” Cooper realized how hard he was squeezing the phone and forced his fingers to relax.

“Good. First of all, by ‘you guys,’ are you referring to agents of the Department of Analysis and Response? Because you might want to remember that you are one.”

“I’m—”

“Second, that was your fault.”

“What?”

“You were spotted. What were you thinking? To pull that stunt on the El and then, that very same night, just walk down the street?”

“What are you talking about?” Replaying the night back in his head, the cool air, the Chinatown neon. He’d been wired, alert to any hint of recognition, had caught none. “No one saw me.”

“No. But Roger Dickinson ordered the entire Echelon II network tasked to randomly scanning the video feed from security feeds across the city. More than ten thousand of them. An ATM camera caught you and Ms. Azzi walking side by side through Chinatown. Once he had that, Dickinson pulled footage from every camera for half a mile. Putting it all together took a while, which is the only reason you weren’t caught.”

Cooper opened his mouth, closed it.

“Your rules, Nick. Your fault.” Peters didn’t raise his voice, and somehow that made the words hit all the harder. “You laid out the parameters in the first place, remember?
You
told
me
that the only way your plan would work was if we went all the way.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“It doesn’t matter if you meant it. All the way is all the way.”

Part of him wanted to scream, to bang the phone on the desk, to stand up and grip the chair and hurl it through the plate glass window into the Wyoming sun. But afterward nothing would have changed. Temper tantrums weren’t going to make the difference.

“Roger Dickinson, huh?” Cooper switched the phone again, wiped sweat from one palm.

“He’s certainly risen to the challenge.” Peters gave a brief, clipped laugh. “You may have been right about him wanting your job.”

“I should have anticipated the cameras,” Cooper said. “Damn. Damn, damn, damn.”

“You’re playing against thousands of people. I’d say you’re doing very well.”

“What happened to Lee Chen and his family? Never mind. I know the answer. Can you help them?”

“Help them?”

“They don’t know anything. Truly. He’s just a school friend of Shannon’s.”

“They harbored two of the most wanted terrorists in America. They got caught. They’ll face the penalty. They have to.”

“Drew, listen to me. The girl, Alice. She’s eight years old.”

There was a long pause. Finally Peters sighed. “All right. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

“Now. What’s your status?”

“I’m.” He took a breath, straightened his back. The anger that had seized him, it was easy to understand. Over the last few days, he’d seen the lie in a lot of the truths he’d held self-evident. But none of that mattered, not right now. “I’m calling because I’ve got my opportunity. I’m going after the target.” A minor risk; even if Smith had a world-class intelligence network, it couldn’t extend to the desk phone of a car dealership. “He dies tonight.”

“So you’ve really done it,” Peters said.

“I’m about to.”

“You have your exit strategy worked out?”

“I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it. That’s why I’m calling. Just in case. I wanted you to know that I’m living up to our deal.” Cooper paused. “And I wanted to hear that you are, too.”

“Of
course
, son.” Peters’s voice rarely betrayed emotion, but Cooper could hear the hurt in it. “No matter what happens, I’ll do that. You’re a hero.”

“Kate—”

“Your daughter will never be tested. I’ve already taken care of the existing record, and taken measures to make sure that there will never be another. She’s safe. I gave you my word, Nick. Whatever happens, I’ll take care of your family.”

My family
. He had a flash of that morning, months ago, whirling his children on the front lawn of their house. One of them clinging to each arm, the weight of trust and love tugging at him with a pull he never wanted to be free of. The green blur of the world beyond them.

What you’ve seen has changed you. Fine. But that doesn’t matter. You’re not doing this for the DAR.

You’re doing it for them.

Back in action.

In his life, Cooper had killed thirteen—no, counting Gary on the freeway, fourteen—people. That made him neither uncomfortable nor proud. It was just a fact. He wasn’t a violent guy, didn’t get off on hurting people. He was a soldier. When he acted, it was for a reason, and it was to save lives.

And yet he had to admit it felt good to be back in action.

The last six months had seen plenty of excitement. Some of it he’d enjoyed, testing himself, building a reputation that would allow him a chance to get closer to John Smith. But at the same time, it had felt like a holding pattern, something he was doing while his real life was waiting. His real life as a father, and his real life as a government agent, as a man fighting for a better future.

As of tonight, the holding pattern was over. He’d have this one chance at Smith. Succeed or fail, this phase would be behind him. No more pretending, no more running.

Well, that’s not quite true. If you fail, there will likely be some running involved.
He smiled and killed the engine.

The ridgeline the cabin sat on backed up to the Shoshone National Forest. After studying the maps and satellite imagery Epstein had provided, Cooper had settled on a narrow fire lane two miles from the house as a place to leave the truck. Earlier he’d stopped at a hunting goods store in Leibniz and bought supplies, and now he stripped down to his skivvies and put them on. A thermal base layer, camouflage pants and jacket, a pair of Vasque hiking boots, and light gloves. He’d splurged on good binoculars, Steiner Predators, which had set him back two grand. Worth every penny; the newtech lenses would not only let him see in the dark, the chipset analyzed the image and highlighted motion. The guy behind the counter had said, “You looking to do a little nighttime hunting?”

“Something like that.” Cooper had smiled.

“These are the ticket, then. Need ammo?”

“I’m good.”

He checked the Beretta now, then looked at the spare magazines, decided against them. If he needed to reload, he’d already lost. Besides, they could make noise if they knocked into something. Cooper locked the truck, tucked the keys under the bumper, and started walking.

The air was crisp and cool, sweet in the way that air was supposed to taste but rarely did. He savored it and the clean movement of his muscles, the warmth in his legs as he climbed. He moved steadily but without hurry, and by the time he’d hiked up the back of the ridgeline, the sky had faded from indigo to purple and finally a velvety black. The moon cast sleek, wet-looking shadows.

The ridgeline was rocky, the trees old and bent with wind. The towers of vertical stone looked even more like fingers, the hand of a giant pushing up from below. Cooper squatted and glassed the area. It took him a few minutes to pick the right tree: an enormous Ponderosa pine about two hundred yards from the cabin.

Ten minutes later, he was perched on a broad limb twenty feet above the ground. His gloves were sticky with sap, and the rich, sharp smell of pine rang in his nostrils. Through the bunched needles, he had a perfect view of Helen Epeus’s home. It was an attractive place with a boxy Pacific Northwest flavor to the architecture. Lots of glass and stylish cedar siding gapped in clean rows. The windows glowed a homey yellow. A cozy, serene spot…except for the man walking the perimeter with a submachine gun.

The gun was cross-slung, the grip in easy reach of the man’s right hand, and judging by the way he moved, he’d reached for that grip before. The guard had a quiet ease and a ready alertness that Cooper recognized. A man who knew how to handle himself.

No surprise. But is he expecting anything?

A split-rail fence about fifty yards from the cabin marked the boundaries of the property. The guard followed the fence, moving slowly, checking shadows and keeping an eye on the road below. Cooper lay still on the branch, glad of the base layer—the night was getting chilly—and watched. The Predators traced a thin red outline around the man, reacting to his steady motion. It took the guard about eight minutes to walk a circuit, and while he varied his route, he rarely strayed far from the fence. A professional, but not showing any sign of anxiousness.

Good enough. Cooper turned his attention to the house itself.

The Predators went white as they adjusted to the change from darkness to light, and then he could see right in: Shaker furniture, shelves lined with books and pictures, a cottage kitchen with a half-f coffee pot. The second guard reminded Cooper of a drill sergeant: silver crew cut, lean muscles, ramrod posture. Sarge poured himself a cup of coffee, then turned to talk to someone Cooper couldn’t see. That would be guard number three; while John Smith might be chummy with his security detail, tonight was about romance. Smith would be upstairs.

Okay. Three guards. A fourth was technically possible, but it would have been sloppy to have three inside and only one out, and Smith would never tolerate sloppy tactics.

The rest of the house looked as expected. The ground-level doors and frames were steel, and the locks heavy. A camera gazed down on the back entrance. In all, it was solid security, the kind of setup that would make a civilian feel safe. But a long way from unbeatable.

So the question is, how are you going to beat it?

A broad balcony hung off the second floor. A sliding glass door led to a bedroom, probably the master. The lights were off, the queen bed smooth. Unoccupied. He didn’t doubt he could get up to the balcony. Only, what then? The door was likely locked, and the glass bulletproof.

It was too bad Shannon wasn’t with him; he had no doubt she could stroll right past. He, on the other hand, might have to go in heavy. Sneak up on the exterior guard. With a little luck, he could take him down silently. With a lot of luck, the guard would have a key.

What if he doesn’t? Or the doors run off a keypad? Or the security team all wear biometric sensors, so they know if a man goes down?

Risky. He was confident he could do the security team, especially if he took them by surprise. But while that was happening, what was to say Smith wasn’t sprinting out the opposite door?

Still, what choice was there—

The light in the master bedroom snapped on, framing a silhouette. The sound of the glass door sliding on the track seemed loud in the Wyoming night. The figure was backlit. Another guard? Cooper refocused the binoculars.

And nearly dropped them. The figure wasn’t security. It wasn’t a stranger.

It had been seven years since the photograph that decorated Drew Peters’s wall had been taken, a young activist addressing a crowd.

Five years since the massacre at the Monocle, that horrifying video he’d watched countless times, the calm butchery of seventy-three civilians.

Two years since the last confirmed photo, a blurry image taken at a distance as he climbed into the backseat of a Land Rover.

Now, through the wavering lenses of his new binoculars, Cooper watched John Smith step onto the balcony.

He wore jeans and a black sweater. His feet were bare. As Smith reached into a pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, it struck Cooper how much older he looked. Like the pictures of presidents before and after their first term, Smith seemed to have aged two decades in a handful of years. His dark hair had salted, and his shoulders had a heaviness to them. But his eyes were sharp as broken glass when he snapped a silver lighter and lit his cigarette. The night vision optics amplified the flame to a halo of fire that seemed to engulf him.

Cooper stared.

The most dangerous man in America seemed at peace. He smoked meditatively, the cigarette pinned between his first two fingers. The night was too cool for bare feet, but Smith didn’t seem bothered. He just stood there, staring out at the darkness.

It was unbelievable. A clean shot, no wind, adequate visibility, the target unaware. If he’d had a rifle, he could have ended a war with one squeeze of his finger.

But you don’t have a rifle, you have a sidearm, and at this distance you may as well try to take him down with harsh language.

Half afraid that if he turned away Smith would vanish like some sort of demon, Cooper panned the binoculars. It took him just seconds to spot the exterior guard. The man was in the worst possible position, almost directly between the pine tree and the cabin. Cooper could go through him, but not without alerting Smith.